Eliminativism without truth

Eliminativism without truth part 1

E. Feser

...Rosenberg has dismissed the incoherence charge as “puerile,” but here he characterizes it as “powerful” and “serious.”  Evidently, what he regards as puerile is the suggestion that eliminativism can quickly be refuted simply by attributing to the eliminativist the pragmatically self-contradictory belief that there are no beliefs.  As I have always acknowledged, Rosenberg is correct in holding that eliminativism cannot be refuted that easily.  The eliminativist can without difficulty simply avoid using “I believe that…” and similar locutions.  The real question is whether he can entirely avoid making use of notions which at least implicitly presuppose the intentionality and semantic content that eliminativism denies.  Rosenberg cites Lynne Rudder Baker’s Saving Belief as the “best” presentation of this more sophisticated sort of objection.  (I develop this sort of objection in the last chapter of The Last Superstition, and also in some of the posts linked to above.)

In this new paper, Rosenberg not only takes the problem seriously, but calls attention himself to the way certain notions that those beholden to naturalism might think unproblematic are unavailable to a consistent eliminativist.  In his understanding both of the implications of naturalism and the gravity of the problems facing certain defenses of it, Rosenberg simply outclasses not only its pop science advocates (Dawkins, Krauss, Coyne, Stenger, et al.) but also many of its philosophical defenders (such as Dennett, and the more aggressive among Thomas Nagel’s critics). 

That is one reason to read him.  Another, though, is to see just how miserably even the most careful defender of eliminativism fails to defend it against the charge of incoherence.  For fail miserably he does. 

Eliminativism without truth, Part II

We’re looking at Alex Rosenberg’s attempt to defend eliminative materialism from the charge of incoherence in his paper “Eliminativism without Tears.”  Having set out some background ideas in an earlier post, let’s turn to the essay itself.  It has four main parts: two devoted to arguments for eliminativism, and two devoted to responses to the charge of incoherence.  I’ll consider each in turn.

Eliminativism without truth, Part III

Now comes the main event.  Having first set out some background ideas, and then looked at his positive arguments for eliminativism about intentionality, we turn at last to Alex Rosenberg’s attempt to defend his position from the charge of incoherence in his paper “Eliminativism without Tears.”  He offers three general lines of argument.  The first purports to show that a key version of the objection from incoherence begs the question.  The second purports to give an explanation of how what he characterizes as the “illusion” of intentionality arises.  The third purports to offer an intentionality-free characterization of information processing in the brain, in terms of which the eliminativist can state his position without implicitly appealing to the very intentionality-laden notions he rejects.  Let’s look at each argument in turn.

The answer seems to be this.  Just as certain critics of the cosmological argument compulsively attack the “Everything has a cause, so the universe has a cause” straw man -- an argument no serious proponent of the argument ever actually gave -- so too, a certain kind of materialist is constantly going on about the introspective trap, the Cartesian theatre, etc.  The assumption is that if you’re not a materialist, then you simply must, at least implicitly, be a Cartesian of some sort.  Never mind the fact that Aristotle, Aquinas, Wittgenstein, and other important critics of materialism (I would say the most important critics) were not Cartesians and indeed would reject the key elements of the Cartesian approach to the mind.  (Never mind either that even when materialists attack Cartesianism, they are often aiming their fire at caricatures rather than the real McCoy -- see the posts on Paul Churchland and Daniel Stoljar linked to here.)  Like other materialists, Rosenberg seems to assume too parochial and tendentious a conception of the problems and the range of possible solutions.

[Laird]

Nice stuff, Sci. Typically clear thinking from Edward Feser. I thought this was nicely representative of his pointed parry of an essay which admittedly I have not read for myself:

Notice that none of this requires -- any more than Rosenberg’s own arguments do -- an appeal to introspection, phenomenology, etc.  When Rosenberg gives you an argument, he gives you the premises (about the success of science or whatever) that he says you are already implicitly or explicitly committed to, and then tells you what conclusion he takes logically to follow from them.  He doesn’t at some point say: “Now, let me add that the reason for all of this is that it just seems from introspection of my phenomenal conscious awareness that the premises are true and that the conclusion follows” or the like.  The focus is on the arguments themselves, not on his or anyone else’s introspective awareness of entertaining the arguments.